The Absorption Company - Shop now
Add Prime to get Fast, Free delivery
Amazon prime logo
Buy new:
-34% $66.25
FREE delivery Friday, January 17
Ships from: Amazon
Sold by: SPRINGWELL TRADE LLC
$66.25 with 34 percent savings
List Price: $100.00
FREE Returns
FREE delivery Friday, January 17
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$66.25 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$66.25
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon
Amazon
Ships from
Amazon
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$15.99
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
Former library book with typical stamps and markings. Former library book with typical stamps and markings. See less
FREE delivery Wednesday, January 15 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35. Order within 3 hrs 49 mins
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$66.25 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$66.25
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Micki McGee
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life

by Micki McGee (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 15 ratings
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$66.25","priceAmount":66.25,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"66","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"25","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"%2FzTEKdgY8r1XIS0aJKecpg7jKtfRE0EryrGNQnpJdjIHMcNatbYRkfHyGdII%2B61ADf3yTArJOaABOwIJKxavLF3V1RK13vMsjyehDGdpQt7Z6KnTYAa%2BF98mg37FR8X8LU%2FOcFa%2Fba%2F1ZPGDMMaRZjw7IyqwOIaxH2tH4BFJ4JdR2rWcbGUQzxd%2Fn7pE%2F7ej","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$15.99","priceAmount":15.99,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"15","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"99","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"%2FzTEKdgY8r1XIS0aJKecpg7jKtfRE0Er8suqM83FQOQthVdg0hzsX1DYUe%2B69wd%2FzVzujO%2BZIwI7ldt4r8pIVFJ5PCbeQ7cbLPyzXG6V6EFjQC8cuFqzh233Qr0Xtb%2BEkBhsXiE9VSzhlPd44T6AqQYOMq%2FsVfmKEOJl1fn6j4gG5rnFK5aCcmSK27cH0CpU","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

Why doesn't self-help help? Millions of people turn to self-improvement when they find that their lives aren't working out quite as they had imagined. The market for self-improvement products--books, audiotapes, life-makeover seminars and regimens of all kinds--is exploding, and there seems to be no end in sight for this trend. In Self-Help, Inc., cultural critic Micki McGee asks what our seemingly insatiable demand for self-help can tell us about ourselves at the outset of this new century. This lucid and fascinating book reveals how makeover culture traps Americans in endless cycles of self-invention and overwork, and offers suggestions for how we can address the alienating conditions of modern work and family life.
  Report an issue with this product or seller
Previous slide of product details
  1. ISBN-10
    0195171241
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0195171242
  3. Publisher
    Oxford University Press
  4. Publication date
    September 8, 2005
  5. Language
    English
  6. Dimensions
    9.64 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
  7. Print length
    304 pages
  8. See all details
Next slide of product details
Books%20with%20Buzz
Books with Buzz
Discover the latest buzz-worthy books, from mysteries and romance to humor and nonfiction. Explore more

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The huge success of self-help, according to McGee, rests on the fact that its practitioners seamlessly combine two conflicting goals, financial or outward success and religious or inner transcendence, claiming that you can eat your cake and have it, too. In a tone less caustic and more sociological than Steve Salerno's in SHAM (Reviews, May 30), McGee, a sociologist and cultural critic at NYU, carefully demonstrates the fallacious underpinnings of this mindset, drawing from a deep well of quintessentially American resources ranging from Cotton Mather to Emerson and Max Weber. Self-help overemphasizes the individual's agency at the expense of the necessary reliance on or assistance of a network of others, and it can be sexist, too, says McGee. Women's rise in the workplace has revealed the "fault lines" in the image of the self-made man, who really depends on a wife to sustain his efforts. To McGee, it's such mendacity that lies at the core of the self-help project, for we cannot make ourselves. Fortunately, her gracefully written account is tinged with sympathy for the harried souls for whom "self-improvement is suggested as the only reliable insurance against economic insecurity" at a time when companies do not properly look after their workers. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"McGee writes clearly and thoughtfully.... She moves seamlessly from high theory to pop psychobabble, using the former to illustrate the powers of the latter. Overall, she offers a compelling argument for resisting the self-improvement genre's worldview."--American Journal of Sociology

"But credit for coming up with real insight into the self-help juggernaut more properly belongs to Micki McGee, a faculty fellow at New York University and the author of Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life.... "McGee's grasp of the philosophical underpinnings... is formidable."--Salon

"Sociologist and cultural critic McGee offers a nuanced examination of the socioeconomic roots and attractions of self-help.... She argues, elegantly and persuasively, that self-help's individualistic approach and its false assumption of autonomy disregard the systemic social inequities that cause individual discontent and do not acknowledge social solutions that might actually help.... scholarly in tone but accessible to interested general readers. Recommended for public and undergraduate collections."--Library Journal

"From Cotton Mather to Stephen Covey, America has been the land of self help. But why, Micki McGee asks, do we see a two-fold increase in self-help books in the last quarter century? Partly, she argues, because women now stand beside men in the hazardous new economy, and like them need help navigating it. Such books propose that we create out of a miscellany of jobs our own career punch-lines, that we reinvent ourselves when market demand turns quixotically elsewhere. Where, she asks, is a vision of a better way to do this thing called life? Elegantly written, brilliantly argued, and very important, a must read."--Arlie Russell Hochschild, author of The Time Bind and The Commercialization of Intimate Life

"Self-help overemphasizes the individual's agency at the expense of the necessary reliance on or assistance of a network of others, and it can be sexist, too, says McGee.... To McGee, it's such mendacity that lies at the core of the self-help project, for we cannot make ourselves. Fortunately, her gracefully written account is tinged with sympathy for the harried souls for whom 'self-improvement is suggested as the only reliable insurance against economic insecurity' at a time when companies do not properly look after their workers."--Publishers Weekly

"Wander through virtually any bookstore across the country and you will be swamped by the self-help section, edging its way closer and closer to the heart of the shop. Micki McGee helps us to track this phenomenon, from its ancestral roots in an unsure immigrant culture to its beating heart in a risky neoliberal one. Wonderfully researched, superbly written, well-organised--this is simply a stand-out of contemporary cultural studies."--Toby Miller, author of The Well-Tempered Self

"From its beginnings, the 'tale of before and after' has been a central myth of American life. For many, the opportunity of self-improvement is regarded as a national birthright. In her penetrating exploration of this enduring cultural tradition--particularly as it has unfolded in recent decades--Micki McGee has revealed the self-help industry as an obsessional treadmill far more than a path to a better life. In an innovative way, Self-Help, Inc. offers a revealing look at the profound dissatisfactions that loiter beneath the topography of our consumer culture." --Stuart Ewen, author of PR!: A Social History of Spin

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press (September 8, 2005)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0195171241
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0195171242
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.64 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 15 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Micki McGee

Micki McGee

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
15 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Top reviews from the United States

  • Elliott Ingersoll
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Slave Behind the Curtain of the "Self-Made Man"
    Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2010
    Verified Purchase
    Love this book! It addresses the mysterious question of who does all the grunt work in the lives of so-called "self-made men (people)?" McGee says it is the "belabored self" who is busy raising kids, doing laundry, and cleaning bathrooms. With a sociologist's eye for larger social dynamics, McGee deconstructs the self-help industry as a tool of oppression to maintain the status quo (and does this well).

    Lose your job? Don't complain or be a "victim" but "buck-up" and talk nonsense about how it is the greatest thing that ever happened to you! Lose your marriage? Don't wallow in self-pity but think positive! Feel hopeless? Don't worry the "universe" has a plan for you if you can just focus on abundance. This is a splendid critique of one of the most vapid American phenomena- the idea that you "invent" yourself. People like Tom Peters should be clubbed unconscious with this book.
    5 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Joshua Leeger
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!
    Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2011
    I thought this was a great piece of work. Other reviewers have provided a lot of the context and content of the book from their own perspectives here, so I won't be redundant. What strikes me as most useful about the book is the perspective that modern self-help texts are based on an isolationist and decontextualized perspective of the "self." They mirror modern hegemonic methods and views.
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Gabrielle Lichterman
    5.0 out of 5 stars Full of insight into the making of the self-help culture
    Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2005
    This book isn't the one you turn to when you want an extreme makeover. It's the book you turn to when you want to figure out why you want an extreme makeover to begin with.

    Self-Help, Inc. sets out to examine how and why the current self-help culture was created and what its impact is on individuals and society -- and it boldly hits its target dead center.

    Dense with facts, history and insight, Self-Help, Inc. examines the movement of self improvement. How did the idea of making oneself better not only start, but become en vogue? What is its impact on the individual, society and the workplace? How does the idea and history of self-improvement differ between men and women (which, as a woman, I found incredibly fascinating)? Where has self-help culture come and where is it going? And what is the long-term advantages and disadvantages of living in a society that puts such a high value on a nearly impossible to achieve "extreme makeover"? Micki McGee, Ph.D., uses her sociology expertise and many years as an NYU professor to answer these questions and more. And she does so with eloquence and intelligence, making this a truly fascinating and illuminating read.
    14 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Martha J. Williams
    5.0 out of 5 stars Self-Help, Inc.
    Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2008
    Wow, this book rocked my world and greatly inflenced my own work as an dance/theater/art maker. McGee wizely points to the underlying currents of personal darkness that result not from our relationships, our schools, our government, but rather from our hyper-competitive economy. This book made me question the fundamental paradigm that runs my own life/how I cope with life and left me in a challenged yet honest and hopeful place.
    6 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Belle Otero
    5.0 out of 5 stars I'm buying copies for all my friends who are hooked on self-help
    Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2005
    I've read a lot of self-help books and sometimes ideas in them work, and sometimes they don't. What I loved about this book is that it gave me the history of these sorts of books. I had no idea that the ideas in self-help books went so far back in time.

    Fun to read, though not a speed-read . . . Lots of great quotes, images, and ideas. I loved this book. I'm buying copies for all my friends who are hooked on self-help.
    4 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • randall claiborne
    2.0 out of 5 stars Politicized, (pseudo-)intellectual pastry...dry and puffed-up
    Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2005
    This has been the season for self-help exposes, and as someone who considers himself "in recovery" from the genre, I've read them all now--not just McGee's book, but Salerno's "SHAM" and Hoff-Sommers and Satel's "One Nation Under Therapy." For my money, McGee's book, though on its surface the most "scholarly" of the three, is also the least satisfying.

    "Self-Help Inc." is basically a hodge-podge of pseudo-intellectual pretense, masquerading as social theory, that by its end devolves into a shameless paean to socialism. The book also drips with the sort of patronizing sociopolitical "enlightenment" that has so endeared the academy, and its hifalutin members, to mainstream America. The author brandishes her obsession with being (or at least seeming) "uber-deep," a tendency that handicaps so much of the social commentary emerging from academia. Indeed, McGee's writing is so pregnant with ivory tower argot that one assumes the subtitle--that line about the "makeover culture"--almost had to have been some bright-eyed marketing type's attempt to make the book sound hipper and more culturally relevant.

    McGee does do a nice job of examining self-help's historical pedigree and underpinnings. She follows Anthony Robbins' spiel back to the New Thought movement of the early 20th century; she discerns Cotton Mather in Covey, and Emerson in the high priests of the New Age. Whereas Salerno argues that the movement cleaves into "victimization" and "empowerment," McGee divides the field into its "rational" and "expressive" sub-movements. (One supposes that she might have had her academic-in-good-standing card revoked for simply bracketing the dichotomy as "thoughts vs. feelings.") Again, this inclination to overreach, to look for complex philosophical explanations when quite-simple ones will do nicely, is par for the course. Also, at least in the view of this former self-help junkie, McGee makes the serious mistake of assuming that the broad appeal of self-help has to do with conscious striving, rather than subtler, more complex emotional forces. One doubts, for example, that the millions who slavishly watch Dr. Phil do so for reasons having to do with Nietzsche or Emerson, or even purposeful self-improvement. (McGraw is a textbook case in the mindless culture [or cult?] of celebrity that underlies so much of the self-help phenomenon, and its amazing ability to shatter its own records again and again.)

    She asserts that people turn to self-help's "rational" side to learn to excel in a dog-eat-dog world, then repair to the "expressive" side as an escape from the foregoing. Is it me, or is McGee not guilty here of the same overblown, Rube Goldberg-like reasoning for which Salerno, Satel and Hoff-Sommers chastise the self-help movement itself? After all, is the essential dynamic here--working hard, then looking for a way to unwind/recharge--really so revolutionary?

    Throughout the book, McGee's feminism is also showing, and sometimes in a most unbecoming way. Almost gratuitously, she feels compelled to explode the myth of the self-made man (by observing offhand that every successful man in history has had a good woman behind him, holding down home and hearth) and she characterizes success training and life coaching as bastardized children born of men's fear of having women move into the workplace and figuratively emasculate them. But her contentions about self-help's more sexist elements seem woefully out of touch with the available evidence, since self-help's feminizing effect on society (by every traditional benchmark of what it means to be "feminine") is significant and indisputable. Regardless of how you analyze the movement or label its component parts, can there be any doubt that self-help's overriding messages privilege feelings over thoughts, camaraderie over individual excellence, getting along over getting ahead? The truth of the matter seems not so much that people turn to self-help as a refuge from rampant feminism, but that self-help, certainly over the past few generations, has been one of the most important social forces underlying rampant feminism, and friendly to its goals.

    McGee's determination to force-fit all evidence or observed phenomena into a preconceived framework is equally clear in her fondness for evaluating self-help regimens based on whether they could be rejiggered to support "progressive" political solutions. In the grips of this pluralistic, it-really-does-take-a-village mentality, she even suggests that recovery groups might marshal and redirect their energies to become latter-day communes of social activism.

    Overall, McGee insists on bracketing self-help as a creature of competition-for jobs, mates, etc. It isn't long before one gets the sense that her real target is the free market itself, and it's that which really differentiates her book from SHAM and One Nation, both of which conceive self-help as more of a left-wing-influenced (or influencing) phenomenon. And correctly so, in my view.
    22 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • rachel carson
    1.0 out of 5 stars super disappointed
    Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2005
    let me give you a word of advice about some genuine self help you can put to use in your life immediately: don't buy this book. i had expected or at least hoped for an explanation of where self help breaks down and whether or not it works, and what i got instead was a long overly philosophical text that reminded me of my reading for college sociology. this book is a case of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, in spades.
    9 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report